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Ivy Nicholson

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Ivy Nicholson at Andy Warhol's Factory, 1964. Photo: Billy Name

Ivy Nicholson (February 22, 1933 – October 25, 2021) was an American model and actress.[1][2]

Early life

Nicholson grew up in Cypress Hills, New York.[3] World magazine reported that she was "born to a humble working-class family".[4] She started working as a model at 16.[3][4] She first modeled in a Brooklyn department store, after winning a beauty contest.[5] In her teens she settled in Greenwich Village and worked in the Garment District.[5]

Model

She appeared on the covers of major fashion magazines such as Vogue[3][6] Harper's Bazaar,[7] Life,[3] Mademoiselle[7] and Elle.[6]

In the mid-Fifties she was romantically linked with Colin Tennant, son of the second Baron Glenconnor.[8]

Nicholson moved to Italy and worked for fashion designers such as Irene Galitzine, Fernanda Gattinoni, the Sorelle Fontana, Simonetta, Alberto Fabiani and Emilio Pucci.[4][9] Salvador Dalí painted her for Life Magazine.[3]

In 1954, director Howard Hawks tested her to play the lead female role of Princess Nellifer in his movie Land of the Pharaohs. Instructed to nip at the hand of actor Jack Hawkins in her screen test, Nicholson bit him “to the bone,” and Hawks decided to go with Joan Collins instead. Said production designer Alexander Trauner, Nicholson “was very beautiful, but a little cuckoo.”[10]

According to a 1960 profile in Look Magazine,[5] Nicholson was painted by Marc Chagall, Lucian Freud and her friend Bernard Buffet.

At the time of the Look article she was living in Paris, the wife of French writer and actor, Count Regis Ruyneau St. Georges de Poleon.[5]

Andy Warhol's Factory

Nicholson returned to the United States and entered into Andy Warhol's circle. "Andy was taken by her," said Gerard Malanga, a poet and photographer who was part of the Warhol circle. "She became his first superstar."[2]

In a caption to a 1966 photo he took of her, Billy Name, a photographer associated with Andy Warhol's Factory recorded "...the glamorous model Ivy Nicholson who had recently arrived in New York from Europe".[11]

She acted in films made by the Factory.[6][4] She was depicted in the film Andy Warhol's Factory People.[7] She frugged for a few minutes in the film Lonesome Cowboys.[12]

Describing her activities at the Factory, biographer Victor Bockris described her as "a tough, violent and hysterical woman".[13] Catherine O'Sullivan Schorr included a picture of Nicholson in her book Andy Warhol's Factory People with the caption "Fiery fashion model Ivy Nicholson in a rare docile moment sits for a Warhol Screen Test".[14]

Personal life

Nicholson had four children: three sons and a daughter.[4] In 1963 she met and married John Palmer, a co-director of Warhol's silent film Empire. Their short marriage produced twins.[2] Nicholson also had a son by a different man.[5]

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in the early 1980s Ivy Nicholson was "living the low life in the Tenderloin."[7]

Subsequently, for some time she was homeless in San Francisco.[9] According to the New York Times "She spent her last decades in or near poverty, sometimes homeless, telling anyone who would listen that she was on her way back up."[2]

Prior to 2014 Ivy and her son Gunther lived together in a small apartment at the North Shore of Staten Island.

In 2014 Nicholson lived in Venice Beach, California,[3] but she was homeless again by 2018.[4] Nicholson died on October 25, 2021, at an assisted living facility in Bellflower, California. She was 88.[2]

References

  1. ^ William Fever, The Lives of Lucian Freud, The Restless Years, Knopf Doubleday, 2019, page 399.
  2. ^ a b c d e Leland, John (2021-11-04). "Ivy Nicholson, Model and Warhol Factory Star, Dies at 88". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Ivy Nicholson by Conrad Ventur - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Selfies with a supermodel". WORLD. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Wild Grows the Ivy," Look, May 10, 1960, pp. 91–93
  6. ^ a b c "'I want to speak to everyone': The human behind Humans of Long Beach • the Hi-lo". lbpost.com. 12 December 2018. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  7. ^ a b c d "Armimondi's work on display at S.F. Main Library," Sam Whiting, Chronicle Staff Writer, December 12, 2009
  8. ^ "But You Married Him," London Review of Books, Volume 2, No 11, June 4, 2020
  9. ^ a b Manning, Emily (November 2, 2016). "powerfully intimate portraits of octogenarian warhol superstar ivy nicholson". I-d.
  10. ^ McCarthy, Todd (2000). Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood. Grove Press. ISBN 978-0802137401.
  11. ^ Name, Billy (2014-11-09). "From Andy Warhol to Nico and beyond: Billy Name's Factory photographs". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  12. ^ "Our Kind of Movie: The Films of Andy Warhol," Douglas Crimp, Page 112, Copyright 2014 by the MIT Press
  13. ^ "Warhol: The Biography, Victor Bockris, Page 271, copyright Hachette Book Group, 2003
  14. ^ "Andy Warhol's Factory People," Catherine O'Sullivan Schorr, pages are not numbered, Copyright 2015 by Open Road Media
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